Demolishing An entire (bedouin) village in the balance
Haaretz - Israel News - An entire village in the balance: "dec 20, 2004 | By Nir Hasson

On Thursday, 10 days ago, the building inspectors from the Ministry of the Interior came to Al-Sidr, an unrecognized Bedouin village that is located next to the Be'er Sheva-Dimona highway. They circulated among the 70 tin shacks in the village and pasted court demolition orders on each of them bearing the heading: 'The State of Israel versus Unknown.'

The buildings are home to 150 members of the Al-Anami family - more than half of them children. If the orders are carried out, the Ministry of the Interior will be able in another 35 days (the legal period for appeal) to erase the entire village from the face of the earth.

"They told us that if we built houses of stone and concrete they would destroy them - so we built from tin," explains Ali al-Anami, a member of the village committee.

The members of his family have resided in the area since before the establishment of the state; until 1982 they lived undisturbed in the area of the Nevatim airbase. Then, in the wake of the peace agreements with Egypt and the withdrawal from Sinai, it was decided to build an Israel Air Force base on the site.

"They came to us from the Israel Lands Administration and asked us to evacuate the area for the airport. We didn't cause any problems, we left the place and moved two kilometers from there," recalled Mohammed al-Anami, another member of the committee. He added that government representatives approved the new location and promised the inhabitants of the village that they would reside there temporarily until a neighborhood was built for them in the recognized village of Arara in the Negev.

"But then the state forgot us for 10 years. Only in 1993 did we receive an offer to move to Arara and to give up our land in exchange for NIS 2,000 per family," says Mohammed. ...
- posted by Editor @ 8:14 PM

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Israelis hasten land grab in shadow of wall
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Israelis hasten land grab in shadow of wall: "Israelis hasten land grab in shadow of wall

Bulldozers go in as expansion of settlements continues

Chris McGreal in Jayyous
Tuesday December 14, 2004
The Guardian

Sharif Omar has been waiting two years for the bulldozers, ever since Israel's steel and barbed wire 'security fence' carved its way between his village and its land. Last week the excavators and diggers finally arrived on the outskirts of Jayyous to lay the foundations for an expansion of the nearby Jewish settlement of Zufim, fulfilling the fears and warnings of its Palestinian neighbours. "

The bulldozers were preparing the ground for hundreds of new homes, despite the Israeli government's claim that it is not expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Like other building work along the route of the barrier, it seems to be an attempt to ensure that the land between the fence and the 1967 border remains in Israeli hands in any final agreement with the Palestinians. ...
- posted by Editor @ 9:07 PM